You’ve set up a classroom blog. It has an eye-catching theme, and you’ve included tons of pages to help the students and parents know the expectations of the classroom. You even write a post updating the latest happenings. Maybe, you have your students writing posts, too. So how come no one is reading it?
Have a blog launch party. Invite students and parents into the classroom either during or after school for a live demonstration of the blog. Kids love a party, and what better way to build excitement and curiosity about the blog! It is the perfect opportunity to go over how to access the blog and give a tour. Also, expectations for posting and commenting can be explained and clarified. (Thanks to #ETMOOCer, Michelle Cordy, who suggested the party idea during Sue’s session!)
Make a detailed direction sheet (with screen shots) about how to find the class blog. On this sheet, also explain guidelines and expectations for using the blog at home.
Make a QR code for your blog address. Typing in a long email address from a flyer can be frustrating. By making a QR code for your blog address, parents/guardians with QR readers on devices such as SmartPhones, iPod Touches and iPads quickly can scan the code and jump right to your blog. This code can go right on the direction sheet as well as on business cards or any paper that is sent home. Why not tape the code to the inside cover of a homework agenda book?
Add a subscription by email option to your blog. At Edublogs, this is a widget that easily can be added to your blog. What happens is when a person visits your blog, s/he can choose to supply an email address and then will receive a notification when there have been changes made to the blog.
Sign up for a Twitter account for your class. Let parents/guardians know so that they may follow your class. (Please see a previous post that explains a little more.) Essentially, when there is a new post or update to the class blog, you would tweet it out. That way caregivers will receive notice in real time on devices. Perhaps, accessing and reading your blog will be a good use of time while in line at the grocery store?
Use the #comments4kids hashtag if your students are writing posts. What will this do? It sends out a tweet to people who are interested in leaving comments for students. (Read a previous post about how this works. Interested in being added to the #comments4kids list, go here.)
Choose a month to be family blogging month. During this time, have students invite specific family members to visit the blog and comment. Here is a link that was shared during the #ETMOOC session about how one class took this approach to getting more people involved in their blog.
Get a buddy class. We comment on yours; you comment on ours. Start a partnership to increase readership. This could be another class in your own school or town, or you could find one via another network such as the Student Blogging Challenge or the Global Classroom Project.
Teamwork: I was just one of the many people who signed up. I worked hard to get my section right (following the guidelines) and submitted on time, but then I had to rely on others to do their part for the whole thing to come together.
Partnership: There truly is safety in numbers. I enlisted my son as I honestly felt a little self-conscious going about the task alone. It was great to see that I was not the only one who used the buddy system.
Awe: I have admiration for those brave souls who performed solo!
Appreciation: Everyone’s own interpretation and approach to the task are valued. I love the creativity and individualism that shines in the finished product.
Pride: I was a part of a great project.
Abbot School’s Community goal is for all members to have a sense of significance, belonging and fun. This project certainly achieved that goal for me as I’m sure it would many of our students. Thanks, #ETMOOC, for modeling connected learning!
Oh, and if you haven’t seen the video yet, here it is… Can you find me?
I am a Responsive Classroom teacher. Sometimes that gets the reputation of being “touchy-feely”. However, anyone who knows me would not describe me or my teaching that way. I have high expectations for student behavior and work that coincides with one of the core principles of RC: the social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum. I feel that the #ETMOOC (that I am participating in) is really justifying that belief.
In last night’s #ETMOOC session “An Introduction to Rhizomatic Learning“, a thought by Dave Cormier rang true for me and all Responsive Classroom teachers: ‘ We need to make students responsible for their own learning (and the learning of others).’
Students have to take ownership. Today, there are so many opportunities to connect with people and make exchanges beyond the classroom walls. Knowing how to interact in this kind of online environment is crucial. Guidelines have to be established. A list of rules generated by the teachers/ adults are not going to keep students safe. Students taking responsibility will. But how will a student know what a responsible connected person looks like? From his/her role models, of course.
Tonight, I attended an #ETMOOC session on Becoming a Networked Educational Leader led by George Couros. The message was clear: if you want to understand social media, you have to use it yourself. And a very important part of using it yourself also is demonstrating character. Show students that you choose your words carefully in your tweets. Write blog posts the way that you would want students to blog, expressing thoughts with well thought out ideas and connections that invite conversation. Encourage by commenting on peers’ and students’ posts, giving detailed feedback and posing questions. In other words, walk the walk.
In Responsive Classroom, asking students to be active observers and participants in classroom role plays is called Interactive Modeling. By playing out scenarios and giving students an opportunity to practice situations, it gets them thinking about expected, respectful behaviors. From these observations and interactions, clear guidelines are defined with student input. Alas, we know that if students are a part of the process of rule making, then they will see the value and need for the rules. This is how we should be guiding students in social media, giving them opportunities to observe us as well as practice authentic online connections.
I want to close with a quote shown during Dean Shareski‘s #ETMOOC session from last week on sharing:
‘I wish we could stop using the word “accountable” and instead talk about “responsible”. It would make all the difference.’
Recently, I attended an #ETMOOC session on connected learning. (To find out about more about this course, please read this previous post.) Below are my thoughts as well as a project proposal for Abbot School.
In today’s world, if you want to know how to do something, you don’t have to wait. The answer is probably only a Google Search and/or YouTube video away. Anyone, including students, easily can seek out the answers to their questions or curiosities. Usually the results are with pictures, audio and even video instruction. Likewise, the seeker also can return the favor by offering advice or answers to someone else using these same online networks and methods. This practice of being connected in your learning is extremely empowering and, honestly, a little scary, if you work with younger students.
Growing up, I was taught that if I had a question, I should ask my teacher. Now, the classroom teacher is no longer the sole purveyor of knowledge. Sharing knowledge is not limited to a select few. Conversations begin soon after only a few keystrokes or an upload of a video. I believe that students need to exert independence and take risks, so I’m fine with classrooms not being teacher-centered, but rather student-centered. However, in this age of mass contribution, we need to be thinking about digital literacy along with the three R’s. In this case, we need to remember what every librarian has always stressed: is the source reliable? Where is the information coming from? Is it biased? I don’t think we should stop students from pursuing their interests and making/gathering connections with a global community. Students just need to be guided. Teachers as tour guides… I think I like that.
This brings me to my proposal for Abbot School. I want to our staff to create a video via the method of crowdsourcing. At the beginning of each week, students recite the Abbot School Pledge in unison with the morning announcements. To show community belief in these words, I would like to ask the staff to video record themselves reading the Pledge and Code of Conduct. This is a great opportunity to model reading with expression and fluency. I will take the recordings submitted, cut a clip from each and make them into one cohesive reading of the Pledge and Code of Conduct to be shared with students and parents. I think this activity will demonstrate how the adults work together and believe in/expect these community guidelines that have been established. Each staff member’s contribution is individual and personal; yet, an important part in making up Abbot School.
Let’s start the tour… I will send out a specific email to staff about how to participate, and I hope this also gets people thinking about how students could create similar collaborate projects in the curriculum.
Always wanting to learn and connect with others in the field of technology integration, I joined a MOOC yesterday.
(I would expect a lot of raised eyebrows at this point wondering what I am talking about…)
What is a MOOC? It stands for Massive Open Online Course. And I’m one of about 1400 people worldwide who (most likely) saw this free educational technology and media course being tweeted, and without too much hesitation signed up wanting to get in on the sharing and conversations.
This MOOC can be found on Twitter with the #ETMOOC hashtag. Also, it is on Google+. Within hours of me signing up, I couldn’t believe the conversations that were piling up in my Gmail inbox. It was a little overwhelming, and I admit that I turned off notifications as over a thousand people’s posts is a bit much to digest. (Of course, now I will need to visit the Google+ page on my own to see what’s going on.) I know a lot of you are thinking who has the time for checking all this out? I’m even thinking that, too. However, I’m curious about this network of what seems to be very enthusiastic educators that has been created. What kinds of good stuff will be shared and discussed? Can I bring any of this back to my school, students and colleagues?
So this is my new adventure and intro video… I’m going to be MOOCing things up a bit, I guess.
(Disclaimer- I am NOT an artist, and this was a risk trying out Doodlecast Pro for the first time which I’m still on the fence about…)
Tweets by @mssanderson_ITS
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